Oh, girl
by Polkadot Retainer
Summary: A group of Nessie drabbles. They feature her interactions with Jacob, and her family, as well as some other experiences. Expect romance at some points, but this is largely told without any plot or a linear timeline.
1. Morning of the First Day

My own self is reflected back at me, all hair and limbs and raw nervousness. My heartbeat flitters so fast that I've lost count, a surprising feat all things considered. Mom stands across the room looking all sorts of proud and hurt. Part of me wants to hug her, but I tap my fingers across my dresser to a song by Coldplay instead, just to avoid the contact in case I accidentally project, not that it doesn't change the fact that she can read it across my face. In all honesty, I don't want to admit it aloud, don't want her to know how fearful I am.

"It's okay, Nessie." Mom crosses the room in less than the time it took me to blink, swift as wind with more grace than any breeze could possess. Her fingers slip through my hair. "High school is… an experience."

This would be a true statement, yes. Most likely if Dad were here he would disagree, stating that after graduating for the twentieth time, the whole things gets rather repetitive. Everyone's tried talking me out of this. Him, my uncles and aunts, even Jacob. They could count off reasons like days of the week: too much of a chance to accidentally touch, too many people, I'll be bored. I get why they'd think it best for me to not go, but it's such a teenage thing to do, and for once, I think I'd like to be normal.

"First day jitters. Trust me, it gets easier." She smiles at me from the mirror.

'_Thanks.'_ My arms wrap around her easily.

Her chin rests at the top of my head. "It's like it was just five years ago that you were in my womb."

She laughs awkwardly, and I join for her benefit, breaking away and grabbing the floral bag laying on my perfectly made bed. I haven't slept in two weeks, been caught up in everything new I can do. It took me less than a month to become fluent in Spanish, learned so I may make good on my promise to visit Zafrina. My parents never sleep, nor the rest of our family, and I know what can be accomplished when making use of all twenty four hours of the day, not that dreaming isn't enjoyable, or an escape of sorts. Still, as with most 'human' things I find it somewhat disorienting, mildly unpleasant at times.

I reach for my mother's wrist, brush against it long enough to relay my message, _'Love you. See you later.'_

I hug Dad, and then leave. Seconds later, I hear their voices drift in the air, clear despite the fact that they are trying to be quiet.

"How will Jacob be?"

"You know he'll be over here later waiting for her." Dad's voice seems playful, but his disdain is evident, always glaringly obvious, despite his occasional attempts to mask it.

* * *

A/N: Honestly, I'm not a big fan of Twilight, won't get in to the reasons, but there are aspects of it that I love, one of which is Nessie and Jacob. So yeah, I hope you've enjoyed this, and if you did then stick around. There should be more that deal with Nessie's interactions with her family, and Jacob, her at different ages, and just anything. If you have requests for anything specific, let me know, and please, go ahead and write a review.


	2. Celebratory

A/N: Another chapter, some Nessie / Jacob fluff. I hope you enjoy!

* * *

Waking up is often disorienting for me, but with light filtering through my window, and splaying across my face, today I'm more disconcerted than usual. My room is the same minty blue it's always been, with my closet's contents spilling out on to my floor, the dresser across the room, and my desk sitting beneath the window. It's all the same, but somehow much brighter, and in realizing that, I know that today is very special.

I throw aside my curtains and raise the blinds. Outside, the sun beams through small, fluffy clouds and sets the world afire. It's like I've woken up somewhere else, somewhere besides Sequim, Washington where every day is dreary and overcast. I pull on a pair of shorts and feel the hunger start to build. I always wake up hungry, even if my slumber has only lasted an hour or two and I fed before it.

All of the blinds in the kitchen are drawn, but a small incandescent bulb gives off plenty of light. Mom sits at the coffee table, sipping on a mug of blood, the odor of which assaults my nostrils. There's a distinct grassiness to it that indicates cow, but a young cow. She motions to a second cup. For a small amount of time I let the hunger play with me, feeling my mouth bite down involuntarily, my fingers grasp so hard I feel like the cup may shatter in my palm, blood exploding across the table, splattering against me. I bring it to my lips and take a sip, warmth spilling down my throat.

"Did you sleep well?" she asks.

I smile and reach for her other hand so that I can relay my ideas. _A warm bed and half-remembered dreams. Waking up content. Throwing open the window and feeling awash with joy_.My fingers slip away before I tell her any more.

"Jacob wants to know if you'd like to go to the beach," she says.

"Yeah, sure."

"He's in the main house waiting."

I chug the remaining blood and return to my room. Particles of air glide along my face and past my skin, blowing my hair out behind me, and in one small jump I'm at the top of the steps. I like moving slowly, allowing myself to be aware of every small change in my environment, the echoes of my movements, but I don't have time to waste. Once inside, I dress and throw my hair up, and then slip on sandals. I reach for my car keys and then fly down the stairs and out to the main house.

Jacob's heat radiates off of him, mingling with air blowing in from his open window. He stares at one spot, not really looking at anything in particular, with a silly grin on his face. I look ahead again, and guide the car through a curve. The road twists and turns, limiting my ability to see more than a couple of hundred feet along it, not that it bothers me or worries me much. The speedometer reads 80 mph, but I'm not in any rush. We have an entire day to spend time together. It's the first time in months that we can hang out for such an extended period of time without any commitments to worry about.

"Is this our first day of celebration?"

"What do you mean?"

My free hand reaches for his arm. _High school seniors walking across a stage, throwing caps in to the air, my diploma against the wall, heading out to eat with my family. 'It only took you eleven years to graduate.' Him in his cap and gown that I took two days earlier. _There's a picture of him in my wallet, to match the six of me he has in his.

Jacob laughs and sticks his tongue out at me. "Not everyone can be a genius like you, Nessie."

"You're smart," I say quietly.

Last winter we sat together on Sunday afternoon and planned what schools we would apply to, most of them in California and Texas. In April we received our letters, decided where we'll be going, and in the past week we both graduated from school, Jacob on Tuesday, myself last night. With no problem, I had a perfect gpa, but Jacob's was on a low B/C side. No doubt he'd received far more rejection letters than acceptance ones. I think that sometimes he feels less than intelligent, even though he's proven himself as both the leader of his pack and a possible future engineer.

I pull in to the small, dirt parking lot near the beach. In the past forty years it's been worn away, mostly by surfers and high school students. We walk towards the beach, his shirt pulled off, my skin effervescent in the sunlight. Neither of us has much to say, but I grab his hand anyway, allowing my thoughts and casual observations to roll towards him. _Warm sand beneath my toes. The pelicans crying out, dip in to the water. His calluses rubbing against my skin. Will the water be cold?_

The waves begin lapping at my toes, but I keep a few centimeters distance from it. I need to know how cold it is, but instead of letting it caress at my ankles I back up the beach to find a spot for my sandals, towel, and bag. With my back turned to Jacob, I strip down to my bikini. His arms slip around me, and I'm being carried bridal style as he jogs down the beach.

'_What are you doing?'_ My panic is tangible, not because Jacob is any sort of threat, or that he would be able to overpower me in any circumstance, or that there would ever be a _circumstance_, but mostly because I know him well enough to know what's about to happen.

His steps are long and quick, feet sinking in to sand but it doesn't slow him down. Seconds later he's up to his knees in water, and then his waist. I grip around his neck, and his chuckle reverberates through his chest. I try clutching him tighter, even though the inevitable is upon me. As easily as if I were a ragdoll, Jacob tosses me away from him.

I tumble in to a wave and plunge beneath the water's surface. Even with my body being yanked around, I feel peaceful. Everything is muffled now, sounds, vibrations, my vision. Murky green haze allows for only outlines of creatures, small fish and Jacob, a good ten feet away. I kick towards him, and grab his right leg, jerking it surprisingly fast, as if the water doesn't slow me down at all.

His hands grab at my shoulder, and I take his hand. He presses against my skin and looks at me, eyes slightly red from the salt water. We both stare at each other, rocking back and forth with the force of the waves above us. I don't know what we're doing, limbs splayed out, neither floating nor sinking. We exist, my thoughts separated from his through sheer will.

'I love you,' he mouths, and breaks away, making for the surface.

I don't know what to do, so I wait, holding stagnant breath in my lungs, and let time pass, let myself be soothed with the underwater current. Jacob's form disappears, slowly becoming one with the discolored sea. It's impossible to tell if he's still in the water or if he's walked up to the beach and sank in to my towel, if he's kept walking up to his house, or if he's phased and taken off in to the forest. I've waited too long.

For as long as we've known each other, we've never used those words. This has been a boundary neither of us have crossed, despite the secrets we've shared, the stories we've told, me dating other boys, him imprinting on me as a baby. I don't know why he picked now to tell me, to awaken this deep-buried monster inside of my chest that roars to life, aching for his touch, his lips, his mouth exploring mine.

My breath explodes as small bubbles, and I resurface. Jacob is walking towards the rocky outcroppings. I swim diagonally towards him, dragging my feet through the sand once the water is at about my waist, and then follow behind him, leaving footprints behind me. If he notices me, he doesn't say anything, and I don't know how to acknowledge this change between us, the tension I'd never experienced before, every memory flooding back, but I have to tell him.

I run towards him, trip in the shifting sand, and stumble on to his back. We land in the sand, a flurry of limbs pressing together. _The brown bracelet on my nightstand. Eating cheeseburgers at the diner. The last time we hunted together. 'I love you.' Watching bad 80s movies in the main house, throwing popcorn at each other halfway through Sixteen Candles. Your hands. Your eyes. The time I woke up from my first nightmare and you rocked me back to sleep. 'I love you'. Riding on your back as you sprint between trees. Our mutual dislike of Romeo and Juliet. Dad hating you in our house. 'I love you'. This monster you've awakened. Wanting to attend University together. Wanting to share a bed with you. The urge to hold my body against yours until the end of time._

We continue to lay there, my arms wrapped around your shoulders, and then I roll off, on to the sand beside you, our arms still touching, as more memories, images, and words assault him. Finally they trickle to a slow end, and I become aware of everything else again, grains of sand attached to my back, salt water drying on my face, Jacob's breath coming in short gasps.

"Are you okay?" I ask finally, a small whisper that is lost in the noise of a wave crashing to our left.

Instantly his body is on top of mine, chest to chest. I want him to say something, but when his lips part, it's so they can find mine. They meet for less than a second, tingles passing from my mouth to the rest of my body, and then Jacob pull away, ever the gentleman. My hands grab the back of his head and pull him towards me again, biting his lip slightly before kissing him again.

Minutes later he pulls away again, this time sitting up entirely. I follow suit, and his legs wrap my waist. I rest my head in the crook of his neck, and listen to the blood coursing through his veins, echoing the rushing of the ocean and my own breath.

"Damn, your dad is going to kill me," Jacob say almost breathlessly, as he kiss my shoulder. "He is really going to kill me."


	3. Giving Up

A/N: I'm going to go ahead and say this is set somewhere between Chapter 1 and Chapter 2. Enjoy!

* * *

The hunger isn't intense, but it radiates out from my stomach, sending aches through the rest of my body. Jacob's heat sears against my thighs and my chest, radiates in the space between us, as small as it may be. I lean in closer towards him, hands grasping at his fur, as he runs. There's a smoothness to it, almost enough to lull me to sleep if I weren't more excited for the hunt.

His gait slows to a stop, and I slide off. For a moment, I can appreciate his russet fur and gleaming eyes, the light dappling against him beneath the canopy above us, but then he turns and dashes through the trees. His muscles tense and relax with each massive step. He doesn't even turn around. I take the time to survey the immediate area, the reverberations of his paws trampling the ground, heavy and immediate despite that by now he's nearly a mile away.

There isn't anything here, or anything I can find from this vantage point. I coil to the ground and then leap. My fingers find a branch which I use to propel myself in to the branches. My goal is to find a bear, and from above I scan the ground for any tracks or disturbances. Nothing. There's signs of a mountain lion, and small snuffling noises from a nearby rabbit, no doubt frightened in to hiding by Jacob's and my arrival. Closing my eyes, I search for a smell, somewhat like wet grass and fish. It's dull. I jump to the next tree, and follow my nose south towards Quinault River. I think there may be five or six of them there.

In no time at all, I spot three lumbering figures, just three, lolling around the river bank. They growl to each other, and swat in a playful manner, like children. It's enough to make me pause with sentimentality, and then I notice another smell under the bears and the river: Jacob. I look to my left, and find his deep brown eyes hidden in shadow. He stares at me, and I don't know how to react, so I look back to the bears.

The Earth shifts, and panting is evident beneath me, as well as footfalls, slightly out of sync, and I'm uncertain of the reason, so I wait, thinking that maybe an older bear is approaching. They, not it, enter the clearing, a mother bear leading her tiny cub. Her shoulders hunch forward, and her back paw is twisted awkwardly, but she's much larger than the other three bears, much larger than anything else I'd find. For some reason now, it's harder to breathe. My eyes find Jacob's again, and I wish he could read my mind from here.

"Can we go?" I whisper.

His large head bounces up and down.

I follow him, feeling very much like the small cub, knowing with complete surety that Jacob, like the mother to her cub, would never intentionally lead me to harm. I fall behind him and step lightly.

We return to Forks, and Jacob disappears behind a tree to take care of his phasing. "The diner?" he asks.

He knows my aversion to 'normal' food, but somehow must also realize that at this moment, that is where I want to be. The hunger is enough for me to cringe if I think about it, but when ignored is only a mild annoyance. A cheeseburger cooked rare should be a good compromise.

At the table, we wait for our orders in an awkward silence that's only begun pervading our company in the past few months, ever since things have started to… change. I find Jacob looking at me again, and glance away, to look at the pretty blonde waitress, or the old time-y jukebox, or count the ceiling tiles. He's still looking. The bears are still burned in my mind.

"When you hunt, you don't kill." My voice surprises the both of us, I think.

Jacob's eyebrows knit together. "Yeah."

We sit in silence together, making that same eye contact, and then at the same time we begin laughing, almost hysterically, as if all of this strangeness has dissolved in to the overly plush cushions we sit on. A few people cast glances at us, a few whisper in to their coffee. The waitress returns with my burger and his steak. He pokes his fork at it, taking deep breaths to calm down.

"So you don't kill, but you hunt with me. Why?"

I know it makes it easier for me to hunt animals, to avoid the lure of humans. When I was younger, I might have needed that extra incentive, time with Jake, but I'm older now. I've learned a good deal of impulse control by now. Even with the hunger, the sweating bodies that surround us, their vital organs pumping blood in a cacophony of temptation, I can ignore any desire, and instead bite in to my burger.

He's become preoccupied with his food, pushing it around his plate. Time stretches on, agonizingly slow. In the kitchen the cook complains that the waitress has dropped someone's sandwich on the floor. She's apologizing profusely, and the cook is ready to either yell at her or accept what has happened and make another plate.

"Because I like to spend time with you," he says softly.

I feel as though he's exposed me to some part of him that has been hidden. I thought I knew everything, but there's more to it. There's more than liking to spend time together. We could do that anytime, anywhere, so why do we hunt?

I reach for his fingers, barely touching his skin. _I want to quit._ The horrors of hunting roll off of me: feeling an animal's life force draining, seeing the dimming of its eyes, the final kicks if I lose myself and take too much. Jacob begins shaking, but he doesn't pull away. Instead, I remove my hand, and grab a fry.

It sits heavily in my mouth. The texture is wrong, and it sticks to my throat. I feel like I can't even swallow it properly, but somehow I manage.

I don't know how Jacob eats so much. He's like a walking garbage can, loading up on whatever he can get to. Already, his steak has been reduced to gristle and bone, and he stabs his fork in to his potato, bringing pieces of it to his mouth before he's fully eaten the last bite.

"Well, first you're going to have to actually eat," he teases.

I roll my eyes and swat at his arm. "This is so gross," I whisper, but still manage to take a bite of unappetizing bread, lettuce, and burger. I suppose I'll get used to it, eventually, or maybe just find a better way to get what I'd prefer.


End file.
